Winnie Mandela Is Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison - latimes Winnie Mandela Is Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison May 15, 1991 |SCOTT KRAFT | TIMES STAFF WRITER JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Winnie Mandela was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison by a judge who said she misused her leadership position and showed "not the slightest remorse" for her role in abducting four young black men who were later brutally beaten at her home. A courtroom crowded with Mandela supporters listened in stunned silence as Rand Supreme Court Judge Michael S. Stegmann sentenced one of the world's best-known anti-apartheid figures to jail for the common crimes of kidnaping and accessory to assault. "You, Mrs. Mandela, bear a heavy responsibility," Stegmann told Mandela, who stood facing him in the defendants' dock. "A position of leadership is not something that entitles you to play fast and loose with the liberty of others for your own purposes." Mandela's attorney, George Bizos, immediately applied for permission to appeal the verdict, citing several dozen instances in which he contended that the judge had erred or drawn conclusions not supported by the evidence.

For Mandela to be allowed to appeal, Judge Stegmann must rule at a later hearing that the appeal has a "reasonable prospect" of success. Mandela was allowed to remain free, and her bail was set at 200 rand ($80). Several hundred African National Congress supporters, surrounded by blue-uniformed policemen, turned out to greet Mandela, who is the ANC's social welfare director. A few carried placards reading: "No Justice Under an Unjust Government" and "Stop Harassing Our Mother, Winnie Mandela." Although some militant ANC leaders have said that Mandela's conviction and imprisonment would touch off mass township protests, her husband, ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela, appeared to play down the impact that the verdict would have on his negotiations with President Frederik W. de Klerk's white-led government. Nelson Mandela, who was out of town during the sentencing, said he remains convinced of his 56-year-old wife's innocence and confident that she will eventually be cleared of all the charges against her. "I trust that soon her name will be cleared completely," Mandela said after a speech to white students in Stellenbosch.

"In the meantime, I appeal to all to leave matters to the courts." Referring to the appeal, he added: "The last word . . . has not been spoken." Winnie Mandela, appearing confident, blamed her troubles on the media, which have thoroughly reported the allegations against her for nearly two years. "We have been found guilty by the media," she told cheering supporters. Although she is a controversial figure inside the ANC, most of those who gathered outside the courthouse Tuesday took a dim view of the government's decision to prosecute her. "They are trying to demoralize his (Nelson Mandela's) spirit," said Tsepo Lentsoane, a black man in his 30s. "They are capitalizing on the mistakes of his wife." Judge Stegmann concluded the three-month trial Tuesday by ordering Winnie Mandela to serve consecutive prison terms of five years for her conviction on four counts of kidnaping and one year for her conviction on four counts of being an accessory to assault after the fact. The charges stemmed from the Dec. 29, 1988, abduction and beating of four young black men from a Methodist church halfway house in Soweto.

One of the victims, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, died several days later, and one of Mandela's bodyguards has been convicted and sentenced to hang in that case. Two of the men were kept at Mandela's home for 18 days, and a third escaped after nine days. Seipei disappeared after three days, and his body was later found in a Soweto field. Mandela had contended that the men were brought to her home to protect them from improper sexual advances made by the Rev. Paul Verryn, who ran the church house. Stegmann found, however, that the men were held against their will and assaulted in an effort to force them to bring charges against Verryn. On Tuesday, Bizos, Mandela's lawyer, asked the judge for leniency. He argued, among other things, that publicity surrounding the allegations had been the "greatest punishment" for a woman of her stature.

But prosecutor Jan Swanepoel, in asking for a jail term, suggested that the defense did not consider the abductions serious because the victims "were from a less privileged part of society." The judge agreed with the prosecution, pointing out that the victims were wayward young men who had taken refuge in the church house. The judge said that Mandela, as a community leader, had a special responsibility to the victims. "You fundamentally misunderstood or ignored your responsibility as a leader," he told her. In her lawyers' application for permission to appeal, Mandela argued that Stegmann's verdict was faulty for a number of reasons. Among other things, Mandela contends that the evidence does not support the judge's finding that Mandela ordered the men forcibly removed from the church house, that she was trying to oust the church house pastor from his job or that she was part of a conspiracy to kidnap the men.

MORE: What is Happening in South Africa: The Murder of 14 yr old "Stompie" The Murder of 14 yr old "Stompie" The Murder of James "Stompie" Seipei James Seipei (1974–1988), also known as Stompie Moeketsi, was a teenage African National Congress (ANC) activist from Parys in South Africa. He was kidnapped and murdered on 29 December 1988 by members of Winnie Mandela's bodyguards, known as the Mandela United football club. Moeketsi joined the street uprising against apartheid in the mid 1980s at age ten, and soon took on a leading role. He became the country's youngest political detainee when he spent his 12th birthday in jail without trial. At the age of 13 he was expelled from school . Moeketsi was kidnapped on 29 December 1988 after a school rally, accused of being a police informer and murdered at the age of 14. His body was found in Soweto with his throat slit.

Jerry Richardson, one of Winnie Mandela's bodyguards, was convicted of the murder. He claimed that she had ordered him to abduct four young men from Soweto, of whom Stompie was the youngest. The four were severely beaten and Stompie's body was later recovered by the police. Involvement of Winnie Mandela Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winfreda Madikizelza; 26 September 1936) is a South AfricanAfrican National Congress Women's League. She is currently a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee. Although still married to Nelson Mandela at the time of his becoming president of South Africa in May 1994, she was never the first lady of South Africa, as the couple had separated two years earlier after it was revealed that Winnie had been unfaithful during Nelson's incarceration. Their divorce was finalized on 19 March 1996, with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. Winnie Mandela's attempt to obtain a settlement up to US$5 million, half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth, was dismissed when she failed to appear at court for a financial settlement hearing.

A controversial activist, she is popular among her supporters, who refer to her as the 'Mother of the Nation', yet reviled by others, mostly due to her alleged involvement in several human rights abuses, including the 1989 kidnap of 14-year old ANC activist Stompie Moeketsi, who was later murdered. In March 2009, the Independent Electoral Commission ruled that Winnie Mandela, who was selected as an ANC candidate, could run in the April 2009 general election, despite having a fraud conviction. Early life Her Xhosa name is Nomzamo. Nomzamo means "trial (having a hard time in life)". She was born in the village of eMbongweni, Bizana, in the Pondo region of what is now South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei, including with the Transkei government, living at various times in Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. She met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957.

They were married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (also called Zeni) (b.1959) and Zindzi (b.1960). In June 2010, Winnie was treated for shock after the death of her great-granddaughter, Zenani, who was killed in a car accident on the eve of the opening of South Africa's World Cup. She has diabetes. Despite restrictions on education of blacks during apartheid, Mandela earned a degree in social work from the Jan Hofmeyer School in Johannesburg, and several years later earned a Bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Witwatersrand, also in Johannesburg. She is also a qualified Social Worker. Apartheid Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of the white minority rule government during the later years of her husband's long imprisonment (August 1963 – February 1990). For many of those years, she was exiled to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area, except for the times she was allowed to visit her husband at the prison on Robben Island.

Beginning in 1969, she spent eighteen months in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison. During the 1980s as well as the early 1990s, she attracted immense national and international media attention and was interviewed by many foreign journalists as well as national journalists such as Jani Allan, then Leading Columnist of the South African Sunday Times. In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, just-resigned President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC created for her in the anti-apartheid activism: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his then wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.

Violent rhetoric and murder allegations Mandela's reputation was damaged by what many considered her sometimes bloodthirsty rhetoric, the most noteworthy example of this being a speech she gave in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, where she endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using tyres and petrol) in the struggle to end apartheid. She said, "with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country". Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ordered kidnapping and murder. On 29 December 1988, Richardson, coach of the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) -- which acted as Mrs. Mandela's personal security detail -- abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Moeketsi ) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Rev. Paul Verryn. Mrs. Mandela claimed that she had the youth taken to her home because she suspected the reverend was sexually abusing them.

The four were beaten in order to get them to admit to sex with the reverend and Seipei was also accused of being an informer. Seipei's body was found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989. This incident became a cause célèbre for the apartheid government. In 1991, she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault in connection with the death of Seipei. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal. The final report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission, issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the MUFC." Transition to democracy During South Africa's transition to democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband toward the dominant white community.

Despite being on her husband's arm when he was released in 1990, the first time the two had been seen in public for nearly thirty years, the Mandelas' 38-year marriage ended when they separated in April 1992 after it was revealed that she had been unfaithful to Nelson during his imprisonment. The couple divorced in March 1996. She then adopted the surname Madikizela-Mandela. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in the first post-Apartheid government (May 1994), she was dismissed eleven months later following allegations of corruption. She remained popular among many ANC supporters, and, in December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, though she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. In 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but also begged her to apologize and to admit her mistakes.

In a guarded response, she echoed his words, admitting that "things went horribly wrong". Legal problems On 24 April 2003, she was found guilty on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League. In late 2003, her close friend and socialite Hazel Crane was murdered. Crane previously offered to buy Madikizela-Mandela a house. In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.

In June 2007, the Canadian High Commission in South Africa declined to grant Winnie Mandela a visa to travel to Toronto, Canada, where she was scheduled to attend a gala fundraising concert organised by arts organization MusicaNoir, which included the world premiere of The Passion of Winnie, an opera based on her life. Return to politics When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Mandela placed first with 2845 votes. Apology to riot victims Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She also apologized to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She also offered her home as a shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.

2009 general election Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president and current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma, former President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President of South Africa Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested that her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor. In 1991, Winnie Mandela was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault but her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal. 2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul . In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", claiming that he was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with FW De Klerk .

Among other things, she also claimed that Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation commission as a "cretin". The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced it would ask her to explain the apparent attack on Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010 a statement was issued on behalf of Winnie Mandela claiming that the interview was a "fabrication". My husband and I have just crossed Africa. On the final leg of our journey we had finally come to South Africa – a place that now went hand in hand with the name Mandela. My husband had been reluctant to come here but then he had followed his instinct and it had brought us to the Soweto door of the mystifying Winnie Mandela, a much celebrated and reviled woman of our times. Looking out at her garden, I wondered how long we would have to wait to see her. We were in a stronghold of sorts, with high enclosing walls and electronic gates which were controlled from inside a bunker-like guardhouse. There were tall muscular men dressed in black who casually appeared and disappeared.

In the late Eighties, Winnie’s thuggish bodyguards, the Mandela United Football Club, terrorized Soweto. Club “captain” was Jerry Richardson, who died in prison last year while serving life for the murder of Stompie Moeketsi, a 14-year-old who was kidnapped with three other boys and beaten in the home where we would soon sit, sipping coffee. Winnie was sentenced to six years for kidnap, which was reduced to a fine on appeal. Members of the gang would later testify to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Winnie had ordered the torture, murder and kidnap of her own people, and even participated directly. Winnie used to live, before she was famous, down one of the narrow, congested streets with small brick and iron sheet houses. Soweto is still a predominately black township: tourists come in buses to gawp at the streets linked to freedom, apartheid and Mandela. Winnie now has an imposing fortress on the hill. The garden is full of trees and well-manicured shrubs. We walked straight into a small cluttered hallway. It was full of the man: Mandela. He was everywhere.

Presents, portraits, honorary degrees and letters covering every empty space on the walls. There was an air of expectancy as we entered. Our fixer had arranged this meeting with Winnie (or Mama Mandela, her township name) through her confidant and admirer. He is a young man in his early forties who is a well-known television presenter here and clearly an ardent devotee. He sat us down and talked softly about her. The politics of his generation, he said, had been defined by this woman. Her courage, her fire and her sheer stubbornness had made them men. They saw how unafraid she was and the risks and humiliations she was willing to absorb. These humiliations had not ended with apartheid. She was discarded, demonized and betrayed, he said. My nerves were playing up: my husband does not like to be kept waiting at the best of times. He is punctilious and has been known to walk away from a delayed meeting, leaving me to deal with the fallout. It was at that moment she appeared, tall, carefully attired in soft grey, wearing her signature wig. She held Vidia’s outstretched hand and asked him to sit next to her.

She flashed a smile in my direction. The air was electrified by her presence. I did what was expected of me. I asked her if she was happy with the way things had panned out in South Africa. Winnie looked at my husband. Did he wish for the truth? She had heard of him. He pursued the truth or the closest he could get to it. No, she was not happy. And she had her reasons. “I kept the movement alive,” she began. “You have been in the township. You have seen how bleak it still is. Well, it was here where we flung the first stone. It was here where we shed so much blood. Nothing could have been achieved without the sacrifice of the people. Black people.” She looked at Vidia expecting another question. He said nothing, but his dark hooded eyes shone and she carried on with her eyes firmly locked onto his face. “The ANC was in exile. The entire leadership was on the run or in jail. And there was no one to remind these people, black people, of the horror of their daily reality; when something so abnormal as apartheid becomes a daily reality. It was our reality.

And four generations had lived with it – as non-people.” As she spoke, I looked at her thinking she was, at 73, as her reputation promised, quite extraordinary. The ANC had needed this passionate revolutionary. Without her, the fire would have been so easily extinguished and she had used everything and anything to stoke it. While some still refer to her as Mother of the Nation, she is decried by many because of her links to the Stompie murder and other violent crimes during the apartheid era, and a conviction for fraud. “Were you not afraid?” I asked instinctively, but then I regretted this foolish query. She looked towards my chair. Her grey glasses focused on my face. “Yes, I was afraid in the beginning. But then there is only so much they can do to you. After that it is only death. They can only kill you, and as you see, I am still here.” I knew that the apartheid enforcers had done everything in their power to break this woman. She had suffered every indignity a person could bear.

They had picked her up in the night and placed her under house arrest in Brandfort, a border town in Orange Free State, 300 miles from Soweto. “It was exile,” she said, “when everything else had failed.” At this remote outpost, where she spent nine years, she had recruited young men for the party. “Right under their noses,” she said to Vidia, laughing with the memory of it. “The only worry or pain I had was for my daughters. Never really knowing what was happening to them. I feel they have really suffered in all this. Not me or Mandela,” she said. Her two young daughters had never quite understood what was really happening. Bad men went to prison. Their father was in prison but he was not bad. “That anguish was unbearable for me as a mother, not knowing how my children coped when they held me in long solitary confinement.” Zenani, now 51, and Zindzi, 50, remain very much in the background, having no wish to enter politics themselves, Winnie said. Nelson Mandela is no longer “accessible” to his daughters and they have to get through much red tape just to speak to their father, she told us.

Winnie brought up his name very casually, as if it was of no real value to her: not any more. “This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out,” she said, looking to the writer. He said nothing but listened. It is hard to knock a living legend. Only a wife, a lover or a mistress has that privilege. Only they are privy to the intimate inner man, I thought. “Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much ‘white’. It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded.” She was pained. Her uncreased brown face had lost the softness.

“I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood. I had kept it alive with every means at my disposal”. We could believe that. The world-famous images flashed before our eyes and I am sure hers. The burning tyres – Winnie endorsed the necklacing of collaborators in a speech in 1985 (“with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country”) – the stoning, the bullets, the terrible deaths of “informers”. Her often bloodthirsty rhetoric has marred her reputation. “Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. He should never have agreed to it.” Again her anger was focused on Mandela. “What good does the truth do? How does it help anyone to know where and how their loved ones were killed or buried?

That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here,” she said pointing to an empty chair in the distance. “He had the cheek to tell me to appear. I told him a few home truths. I told him that he and his other like-minded cretins were only sitting here because of our struggle and ME. Because of the things I and people like me had done to get freedom.” Winnie did appear before the TRC in 1997, which in its report judged her to have been implicated in murders: “The commission finds Mandela herself was responsible for committing such gross violations of human rights.” When begged by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to admit that “things went horribly wrong” and apologise, Winnie finally said sorry to Stompie’s mother and to the family of her former personal doctor whose killing she is alleged to have ordered after he refused to cover up Stompie’s murder. Someone brought in the coffee and we took the offered cups in silence. “I am not alone. The people of Soweto are still with me. Look what they make him do. The great Mandela. He has no control or say any more.

They put that huge statue of him right in the middle of the most affluent “white” area of Johannesburg. Not here where we spilled our blood and where it all started. Mandela is now a corporate foundation. He is wheeled out globally to collect the money and he is content doing that. The ANC have effectively sidelined him but they keep him as a figurehead for the sake of appearance.” The eyes behind the grey tinted glasses were fiery with anger. It was an economic betrayal, she was saying, nothing had changed for the blacks, except that apartheid had officially gone. As she spoke of betrayal she inadvertently looked at a portrait of Mandela. I looked at Winnie. Maybe she did not know when to stop. Maybe that is the bane of a revolutionary: they gather such momentum that he or she can’t stop. I saw that although her trials and tribulations had been recorded, the scars on the inner, most secret part of her spirit tormented her. But for Winnie the deaths, the burning tyres around the necks of the informers and her own Faustian pacts perhaps made Mandela and his vaunted wisdom look like feeble compromises from a feeble man.

No one could expect him to protect her or his children from his 27-year incarceration but now he was out he had wanted peace. He had longings, perhaps scars in the mind, fears and perhaps even wisdom that she could not match or return. The rumour rife in South Africa was that she could not abide him or touch him during their two-year attempt to salvage the marriage after his release in 1990. It was all too sad. And though he had been prepared to forgive the past, his wife’s affairs while he was in prison, it had not worked. They divorced in 1996, having spent only five of their 38 married years together. Her anger was a mighty liability and her defiance was too awful for words. “I am not sorry. I will never be sorry. I would do everything I did again if I had to. Everything.” She paused. I thought of the terrible shadow of the murder of Stompie. Winnie had flung the stone that had cracked the one-way mirror of apartheid. The “interrogators”, the compromisers, were now all unmasked and for what? “You know, sometimes I think we had not thought it all out.

There was no planning from our side. How could we? We were badly educated and the leadership does not acknowledge that. Maybe we have to go back to the drawing board and see where it all went wrong.” This was Winnie the politician. This was the phoenix. Publicly, the ANC leadership, who made her a minister in the first post-apartheid government in 1994 and welcomed her back subsequently, distanced themselves from her amid allegations of corruption (in 2003, she was convicted of fraud and given a suspended prison sentence). But for the masses, she spoke their language and remains popular with those who feel their government hasn’t done enough. We could see why the ANC had needed this obdurate woman. She was bold and had an idea of her worth. She was the perfect mistress for the ANC in the bad times but then she became dangerous. As we stood up to leave, we saw a photograph of a young Winnie looking wistfully into the camera. She was ravishingly beautiful and Mandela had sought her. But the battle was over. She had played her part. It was over.

She had been sidelined and discarded, but since the freedom had not brought the promised dream for the vast black population, she would continue to play her hand in politics. Of that I was sure. She was still a woman who could reflect the dangerous part of a man’s dream, whatever it may be. “When I was born my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy. I wanted to be a doctor at some point and I was always bringing home strays from school. People who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.” She lit up talking of her past and of early memories that had nothing to do with the struggle. And then she suddenly turned towards Vidia and said: “But when I am alone I cannot help but think of the past. The past is still alive in here. In my head.” She pointed to the brain. Was it all nothing but a great loss? I wanted to know. Part of me ached for her. As a woman I felt her great transgressions and the pain.

I wanted to tell her that if I had been Mandela I would have forgiven her but I lacked the courage. What would Vidia say to me if I did? He was saying goodbye. My eyes were filling. Instinctively she turned and looked into me and her eyes softened. She walked towards me and pulled me into her embrace. “I know what you want to say,” she whispered into my ear, “and for that I am grateful.” (The interview appeared on the London Evening Standard on the 8th March 2010. Days later Winnie denied that the interview took place but Nadira insisted that it did) Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News , January 25, 2010 The Rand Supreme Court sentences Jerry Richardson to death for the murder 14-year-old Stompie Seipei. Stompie Seipei was a child activist and member of the infamous Mandela Football Club established by Winnie Mandela as a front for the political mobilisation of township youths to stand against apartheid. Jerry Richardson abducted Seipei and three other boys near the Methodist Church (Manse), Soweto and took him to Winnie Mandela’s home.

Richardson alleged that Winnie Mandela initiated the torture of Seipei, who was sjamboked and bounced on the floor by Richardson. Seipei was allegedly tortured and killed for sexual misconduct with a Methodist reverend Paul Verryn who was accused by some of the boys for having homosexual practices with young boys. Winnie Mandela also accused Seipei for being a police informer, a charge that carried a death penalty in terms of township mob justice. Winnie Mandela denied any involvement in the death of Stompie Seipei and accused Richardson for lying. However, the judge implicated Winnie Mandela in Stompie Seipei’s death by ruling that she was present when Stompie Seipei was tortured. The death of Seipei continued to haunt Winnie Mandela until some closure was reached when Winnie Mandela accepted, before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, some responsibility for the death of Seipei. Winnie Mandela had already apologised to Seipei’s mother for the loss of her son, but maintained her innocence.

BBC NEWS | Special Report | 1999 | 05/99 | South Africa elections | The Winnie factor Thursday, 27 May, 1999, 17:14 GMT 18:14 UK The Winnie factor Winnie Mandela still represents black power for the poor Throughout South Africa's election campaign there has been speculation as to whether Thabo Mbeki, leading a new ANC government, will have the stature and vision to replace the iconic Nelson Mandela. But Mr Mbeki will also have to deal with a political challenge from another quarter - from Mr Mandela's former wife. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela remains one of the most important and controversial figures in South Africa. She is the ANC's most high-profile advocate of the poor. She travels tirelessly through the most impoverished areas and forcefully demands change. "Some of us made the mistake of thinking that we are free," she told cheering voters on the campaign trail in the Cape flats. "But we are not free as long as our people remain as poor as they are.

The revolution we should all be engaged in today is the liberation of our people from poverty." The "mother of the nation" Ms Mandela has spent years courting the devotion of these poor, black voters. And despite findings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission linking her with killings, and despite her divorce from President Mandela, she still brings huge support to the ANC. "She's powerful. She's very strong. She stands for what she says," one supporter in a crowd told BBC News. "We have already forgiven her." But has the ANC? Ms Mandela has proved she is a force to be reckoned with. After the 2 June elections, in which she is certain to win a seat, the party must decide if it believes Winnie Mandela can once again be a political asset. Rise and fall of Winnie Mandela The ANC cannot discount Winnie's popularity with the poor It is clear that Winnie Mandela has been a huge embarrassment to the party. The woman known as the "mother of the nation" last year was found guilty by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to have authorised or sanctioned murders and to have allowed her home to be used as a place for assault and mutilation.

She was also convicted over the murder of 14-year-old activist Stompei Seipei Moketsi who was kidnapped by her guards and later found dead. Initially, she was sentenced to six years in jail. She appealed and had the sentence reduced to a fine. It was a bittersweet victory. At 64, Ms Mandela was virtually disowned by the party she had helped to build. Staging a comeback? In this election, Winnie Mandela has worked hard to keep her supporters, as well as a very low profile. "Winnie Mandela is a very good self-publicist. She knows a photo opportunity," says David Coetzee of Southscan, a southern African newsletter based in London. "But throughout the campaign she has chosen not to make any deeply controversial or high-profile campaign statements. "I think she anticipates that she will be brought back into the fold in a real way within the ANC after her period of semi-exclusion. She is hoping Thabo Mbeki will find a way." But according to Howard Barrell, a former ANC member and current political editor for the South African Mail and Guardian, the ANC is not likely to welcome Ms Mandela with open arms.

"Thabo Mbeki is too smart to have Winnie Mandela in any position of real power in his government," he told BBC News. "He recognises that the opposition and elements of the business community would point incessantly to the presence of Winnie Mandela when expressing any dissatisfaction about the level of investment in the country." Mr Coetzee added: "The government needs to decide if in times of continuing economic trouble, it's better to have a populist politician in government. I don't think she will be given a cabinet post but he knows he needs her to keep the constituency on his side." See also: MANDELA: An Audio History Mandela: An Audio History is told through the voices of more than 50 people who fought with - and against - Nelson Mandela. NEVILLE ALEXANDER As one of the founders of the National Liberation Front, Neville Alexander was convicted in 1964 for conspiracy to commit sabotage and sent to Robben Island for ten years. After his release, Alexander became involved in the fight against P.W. Botha's tricameral constitution and in 1979 wrote a book called One Azania, One Nation.

"Interactions with the Afrikaners were always antagonistic before we went to prison. But in Robben Island we came to understand the character of the Afrikaner as a political animal." —Neville Alexander FIKILE BAM While studying law at the University of Cape Town, Fikile Bam became an underground activist, distributing propaganda. He spent 11 years on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela before being released in 1974. "In prison you have time to think about the things that matter, like the future of the country. In spirit. you are actually freer than the people outside. When I was released I was uneasy. I felt I was better off with the crowd on the Island. That carried on for a while." —Fikile Bam GEORGE BIZOS George Bizos, a Greek expatriot and veteran lawyer, defended many well-known political activists in South Africa beginning in 1954. Bizos was Nelson Mandela's lawyer and confidant throughout the Rivonia Trials, and he defended Winnie Mandela several times in court.

Throughout the 1990s, Bizos played a central role in establishing constitutional law and investigating apartheid-era crimes for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). PIK BOTHA Pik Botha became a member of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs as a young man. He joined the National Party in 1970, and sat in the UN General Assembly during the height of apartheid. Botha served under Nelson Mandela as Minister of Energy, but left in opposition to F.W. de Klerk’s departure from office. CHRISTO BRAND As a young warder on Robben Island, Christo Brand became friendly with many of the political prisoners. Later in his career, Brand was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison where he eventually took Nelson Mandela on several preparatory outings prior to his release. NAT BREGMAN Nat Bregman was a law clerk at Witkin, Sidelsky, and Eidelman at the same time as Nelson Mandela, in 1942. Mandela refers to Bregman as his first white friend. As a member of the South African Communist Party he introduced the future leader to the intellectual ideals of Communism.

AMINA CACHALIA Amina Cachalia was a prominent member of the Indian Youth Congress during apartheid. She comes from a political family whose involvement began with Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance movement in South Africa. Cachalia’s political activities brought her into contact with Nelson Mandela, who later became a close friend and mentor. "We used to get together in somebody's home, Nelson, Yusef, Walter, and others. There was the home of a family very near to Indian Congress and also near to the ANC offices in the centre of Johannesburg. A lot of people in the offices used to go over to their home for meals. It was social life but spiced with political ideas always." —Amina Cachalia EDDIE DANIELS Eddie Daniels formed the African Resistance Movement in partnership with dissenting liberals in order to exert greater pressure on the apartheid government. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on Robben Island for committing acts of sabotage. Daniels entered Robben Island with an 8th grade education and left with two university degrees. "We were amateurs trying to do our best to destroy apartheid. We were not highly trained. We paid to fight. Even supplied our own cars.

Ten percent of our salaries went to the fight." —Eddie Daniels DENNIS GOLDBERG Dennis Goldberg was the only white member of Umkonto we Sizwe (MK) to be arrested and sentenced in the Rivonia Trials to life imprisonment. He was sent to a white prison in Pretoria to serve a life sentence for 'attempt to overthrow the apartheid state through force of arms'. "Being black and involved (in the struggle) meant you had support of many people and it meant you got to be part of a community. Being white and involved meant being isolated." —Dennis Goldberg RICA HODGSON Rica Hodgson and her husband, Jack, were anti-apartheid activists when Nelson Mandela was gathering support for an armed struggle. Having spent time in the military and the mines near Johannesburg, Jack was an explosives expert. Nelson Mandela and others carried out early bomb experiments at the Hodgson's house in preparation for the launch of Umkonto we Sizwe (MK) and the bombing campaign, which began on December 16, 1961. The couple fled into exile shortly thereafter and remained active in the underground from Southern Africa.

AHMED KATHRADA Kathrada was sentenced to life imprisonment at Rivonia along with the core leadership of Umkonto we Sizwe (MK). He began a political career in his teens as a member of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. He completed his BA in Arts and an Honors in History and Politics while on Robben Island. Kathrada served as a Parliamentary Counselor to Mandela after the 1994 elections. "It's been ingrained in us, this apartheid thing. We were excluded from all these facilities: restaurants, hotels...and now they're all open to us. I can't speak for the others, but it's that easy to adjust." —Ahmed Kathrada TOM LODGE Tom Lodge is a well-known political scientist in South Africa. He has written several comprehensive analyses on apartheid, including Consolidating Democracy: South Africa's Second Popular Election and Politics in South Africa from Mandela. MAC MAHARAJ Mac Maharaj became politically active in 1963. He spent several years underground as part of Umkonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

During his 12 years on Robben Island, Maharaj transcribed, in miniscule handwriting, thousands of pages of Mandela's notes. The papers he smuggled out with him upon his release became the basis for Mandela's memoir, Long Walk to Freedom. Maharaj was part of the team that negotiated the transitional government in the early 1990s. MAKAZIWE MANDELA Makaziwe (Makie) Mandela is the youngest daughter of Nelson Mandela and his first wife, Evelyn. She was 6 years old when her parents divorced. Makie frequently visited her father while he was underground in the 1960s, and didn't see him again until she was a teenager in the late 1970s. NELSON MANDELA Nelson Mandela is an iconic leader and worldwide symbol of forgiveness and the triumph of the human spirit in the struggle for freedom. Having spent 27 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island, he was instrumental in helping to negotiate an end to apartheid. Mandela was president of South Africa from 1994 until 1999, when he retired from public service.

WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELA Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was Nelson Mandela's wife and political partner for nearly 38 years. Madikizela-Mandela was regularly banned for her political activities; in 1975, she was banished to the small Afrikaaner town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State. In the late 1980s, she became a controversial figure because of her involvement with the Mandela United Football Club, which brutalized her neighbors and kidnapped 14-year-old Stompie Stompei. Madikizela-Mandela has been president of the ANC Women's League and was deputy minister of arts, culture, science, and technology for the ANC from 1994-1995. ZINDZI MANDELA-HLONGWANE Zindziswa (Zindzi) Mandela-Hlongwane is the youngest daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. She was 18 months old when her father was sent to prison, and she was 14 when she first saw him again on Robben Island.

In 1985, Zindzi made headlines when she read aloud her father's response to the government's conditional release offer. The speech, known as "My Father Says..." in which he emphatically refused the offer, inspired a renewed mass action campaign. "I delivered that message at Jabulani Stadium, in Soweto. My mother was banned at the time, so she couldn't attend. But she did come disguised. I was a bit emotional, close to tears, because it was my father's words. It was hard: here was an opportunity when he could have come out. I could have had a normal life, but once more I couldn't. And I couldn't even fault him for that, because I believed in the stand that he took." —Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane DOROTHY MASUKA At the age of 14, Dorothy Masuka became famous in South Africa for her political songs including Dr. Malan, which despite being banned, was known by almost every black in the country. After a very brief career, she went into exile where she was active in the underground struggle. She returned nearly four decades later to sing at Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

JOE MATTHEWS Most people consider Joe Matthews to be an "ANC Man," as he has been active in the African National Congress (ANC) and the Youth League since 1944. Matthews accompanied Nelson Mandela on his trans-Africa tour to garner support and training for the military branch of the ANC. Matthews was a close friend of Mandela, often staying with him in his Soweto home after Mandela and Winnie divorced. FATIMA MEER Fatima Meer is an author, professor of sociology, and political activist. Meer and her husband were good friends with Nelson Mandela in the 1950s, but she became even closer to Winnie when they were imprisoned together in 1969. Meer was the first president of the Black Women's Federation (established in 1975) and author of the Nelson Mandela biography, Higher Than Hope. ROELF MEYER Roelf Meyer was one of the key architects of the post-apartheid constitution. He and ANC negotiator Cyril Ramaphosa were known as 'the channel', the only line of communication throughout the official and unofficial breakdowns in the negotiation process.

Meyer was Minister of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development for the transitional government until 1997, when he resigned and helped pioneer a new political party, the United Democratic Front (UDF). BONGHI MKHABELA Sibongiwe (Bongi) Mkhabela was one of the student organizers responsible for planning the Soweto march to protest the use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in high schools. She was arrested shortly after the June 16th march, where police shot at student protestors, killing 60 and wounding hundreds more. She was sent to Pretoria Maximum Prison for seven years; much of that time was spent in isolation. ANDREW MLANGENI Andrew Mlangeni was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trials and spent 26 years on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and others. He was one of the few leaders who were transferred to Pollsmoor Prison with Mandela in the 1980s. He received his BA in Political Science through University of South Africa while in prison. Mlangeni became a member of Parliament after the 1994 elections.

THANDI MODISE As a teenager, Thandi Modise crossed the borders into Angola to train as a guerilla soldier for the emerging military wing of the ANC, Umkonto we Sizwe (MK). Having undergone military and political training, she was the first woman sent back to fight and organize in the townships. Her fellow soldiers named a machine gun "The Thandi" in her honor. Modise has recently served prominent roles in the ANC, the Women's League, and Parliament. STRINI MOODLEY Strini Moodley was a key founder of the Black Consciousness movement and the South African Students Organization (SASO). He was arrested in 1974 under the Suppression of Communism Act and sent to Robben Island, where he inhabited a cell across the hall from Nelson Mandela. After Moodley was released from prison, he worked as a journalist for the Natal Witness and served as a member of the National Executive Committee of Media Workers Association. DR. NTHATO MOTLANA Dr. Nthato Motlana's role as the Mandela family physician allowed him to remain in close contact with Mandela throughout his incarceration.

He played a critical role in the aftermath of the 1976 student uprisings when he and Winnie Madizikela-Mandela formed The Black Parent's Association. In addition to his medical practice, Motlana is well-known for his entreprenureship, which has increased visibility for black-owned business throughout South Africa. DULLAH OMAR Dullah Omar was one of the few lawyers allowed to visit political prisoners on Robben Island. He would often smuggle papers in and out of the prison in food that his wife cooked for the prison guards. Omar endured intense harassment by the apartheid government. He was banned and detained several times, and the security body of the NP government made numerous attempts to assassinate him, at one point attempting to kidnap his daughter. Omar was appointed Minister of Justice under Nelson Mandela in 1994, and later as Minister of Transport under Thabo Mbeki. Omar died on March 13, 2004 in Cape Town. ALBIE SACHS Albie Sachs was a member of the underground military and was detained under the "90 Day Law" by the apartheid regime.

As the government was preparing to release Mandela, Sachs and others were studying constitutions around the world in preparation for negotiating the new South African constitution. Once negotiations began, he served a key role in the process. Sachs has written several books on law, gender, and human rights, including The Jail Diaries of Albie Sachs. He is currently a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. LUNGI SISULU Lungi Sisulu is the eldest son of Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela’s mentor and confidant throughout the anti-apartheid struggle. Lungi began crossing borders to deliver messages for the underground at the age of 14. He and his family lived with ongoing harassment by the South African police force during apartheid. He is currently a businessman in Johannesburg. ALLISTER SPARKS Having covered South African politics for more than 50 years, Allister Sparks is South Africa's best known journalist. He is the author of three award-winning books on South African history and the struggle against apartheid, including The Mind of South Africa, Tomorrow is Another Country, and Beyond the Miracle.

(Producer's note: We highly recommend Beyond the Miracle for anyone wanting to learn more about post-apartheid South Africa.) RAYMOND SUTTNER As a white university lecturer and member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Raymond Suttner worked underground for the guerilla movement from 1971 until his arrest in 1975. He was imprisoned for seven years and six months, and in 1986 was detained for another three years. Having helped to clarify the Freedom Charter, Suttner returned to academia where he has researched guerilla fighters in the underground struggle. HELEN SUZMAN Helen Suzman is well known for her role as the unyielding voice of opposition to apartheid in Parliament for 28 years. She began as a professor of economic history at the University of Witwatersrand, and later formed a branch of the United Party (UP) at the University as a means to question the racist policies of the apartheid state. She stood as the lone parliamentary representative of the UP (and later the Progressive Federal Party) until she was joined by Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert in 1974.

For several years she was the only political leader allowed to visit Robben Island. She made several trips there throughout the late 60s and 70s and her reports to the International Red Cross were critical in demanding improvements in prison conditions. Other Prominent Leaders in South African History STEVE BIKO Steve Biko was founder of the Black Consciousness Movement and co-founder of the South African Student Organization (SASO). Arrested twice in the late 1970s, Biko died of cerebral injuries sustained in police custody. The murder captured international headlines and established Biko as an enduring symbol of black resistance to oppression. CHRIS HANI Chris Hani was chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and a senior member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Hani received specialized military training in the Soviet Union and later fought in the Rhodesian bush war. He returned to South Africa when the ANC and SACP were unbanned in 1990. In 1993, Hani was assassinated by right-wing extremists hoping to disrupt the election. And they almost succeeded. The country teetered on the brink of chaos as thousands mourned his death.

Mandela calmed the masses when he appeared on television saying, "Let us respond with dignity." P.W. BOTHA Known as the "great crocodile", P.W. Botha joined the Nationalist Party in 1948 and served as Prime Minister from 1978 until his resignation in 1989. Although Botha was a strict conservative, many apartheid restrictions were loosened under his regime and he began secret negotiations with the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela before he was ousted by his own party. He was charged at the Truth and Reconciliation for 'Crimes of Humanity', which occurred under his watch. D.F. MALAN D.F. Malan was the Prime Minister of the National Party (NP) when it first came to power in 1948. The 1948 elections represented a radical shift from British colonial rule (under Smuts and the United Party) to the Afrikaner-dominated NP which ran on a platform of racial separation. H.F. VERWOERD H.F. Verwoerd is considered to be the intellectual architect of apartheid.

As Minister of Native Affairs for the NP government in his early career, he implemented some of the most effective apartheid laws including the infamous 'Bantustan' policy, which separated black tribes into independent homelands that were denied basic civil rights. Appointed Prime Minister after the death of J.G. Strijdom in 1958, Verwoerd lead South Africa through the turbulence of the 1960s. He was stabbed to death in 1966 by a Parliamentary messenger. WALTER SISULU While his name is not as widely known as Nelson Mandela's, Walter Sisulu played an integral role in grooming the ANC leadership in the anti-apartheid struggle. He was part of the trio that formed the ANC Youth League in 1944, he was a key figure in the Defiance Campaign of the 1950s, and he helped establish the MK in 1960. One of eight men imprisoned for life in the Rivonia Trials, Sisulu is considered by most of his comrades to have been the father of the struggle. Walter Sisulu passed away on May 5, 2003.

OLIVER TAMBO Oliver Tambo was the co-founder (along with Nelson Mandela) of South Africa's first black legal firm. Being a key leader (and eventually the President) of the ANC, Tambo went into exile in the 1960s and managed the external activities of the ANC. These activities included several visits to the United Nations, structural reorganization, and the establishment of military training camps outside South Africa. After suffering from a stroke in 1989, Tambo in 1991 relinquished his position as ANC president to Nelson Mandela. Radio Diaries, Inc. 169 Avenue A, Suite 13 New York, NY 10009 info@radiodiaries.org Radio Diaries is a not-for-profit production company

Question: Who was the woman sentenced to six years in jail after the murder of Stompei Seipi?
Answer: Winnie Mandela